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When I came to Jackson, MI in 2004, it took me a while to realize how unsupported the LGBTQ community felt here. During my seminary years, all my LGBTQ friends and colleagues were entirely out of the closet, and as someone with cis-gender and heterosexual privilege, I had basically forgotten that the closet could still exist. But here in Jackson, I found, the closet was still deep and wide. People I knew through church or PFLAG or social justice work might be out in one context and still in with family, work, or other friends. So I learned this again, and said it many times to people in one context or another that Jackson was not as progressive with LGBTQ rights as many other locations. I said it, and I knew it, but I hadn't felt it.

In Michigan we have no state-wide protections for LGBTQ people. In fact, when our state's civil rights legislation, the Elliott-Larsen Act was passed in 1976, LGBTQ protection was specifically left out because of fear that adding LGBTQ protection…

The Rev. Dr. Cynthia L. Landrum is a Unitarian Universalist minister, artist, writer, parent, and justice advocate. The opinions expressed here are solely her own, and do not represent the views of the church or any other organization she serves.